UFC lightweight Paul Felder says a potential matchup against Nate Diaz excites him
On a recent edition of The Bash podcast, UFC lightweight star Paul Felder weighed in on several notable topics. Felder revealed that a potential matchup against MMA legend Nate Diaz excites him.
Felder added that irrespective of what weight the bout against Nate Diaz is contested at, he’s more than willing to change classes in order to fight him. Additionally, Felder opined that he’d love to continue competing in five-round main event matchups for the rest of his career.
Felder believes that he performs even better in five-round fights and emphasized that if possible, he’d like all his fights to be such matchups. With regard to a potential matchup against Nate Diaz, Felder stated.
“You give me a Nate (Diaz) or something like that and I’m willing to move weight classes and all that kind of stuff for that kind of a fight, you know? He’s a BMF guy, an OG; he’s been around fighting everybody. So yeah, you wanna excite me that way, it’s automatically a main event somewhere or co-main on a pay-per-view, and I take that fight all day. Something like that is what you’d get me to go outside the rankings because who cares what a guy like Diaz’s ranking is. Nobody cares what that is. They wanna see a scrap. And I think the two of us (can fight), for sure.” (*H/T Sportskeeda for the transcription)
Paul Felder is coming off a valiant effort in his loss against Rafael dos Anjos
Former UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos was scheduled to take on Islam Makhachev in a five-round main event bout at the UFC’s November 14th Fight Night event.
However, Makhachev was coerced to withdraw from the matchup due to a staph infection. With the UFC and RDA resultantly looking for a short-notice replacement for the fight, UFC commentator/analyst Paul Felder stepped in to save the day.
Paul Felder accepted the high-risk matchup on less than a week’s notice and successfully cut weight to make the lightweight limit for his fight against RDA.
Although Felder did have his moments on foot against Dos Anjos, it was the latter’s grappling-heavy strategy that proved to be the difference. After a hard-fought five rounds, the judges’ verdict was a split decision in favor of RDA.
Nevertheless, in spite of ending up on the losing end, Paul Felder has garnered significant praise for his valiant effort on extremely short notice against a former UFC lightweight champion in RDA.
Meanwhile, Nate Diaz hasn’t competed since suffering a TKO loss to Jorge Masvidal in their BMF title fight last November.
Which fighter do you believe would emerge victorious in a potential matchup between Paul Felder and Nate Diaz? Sound off in the comments.